Something I've neglected mentioning here is that I finished Stephen King's The Dark Tower series over a month ago. Boy what a ride. The story colored my layoff season and I'm glad I read all seven books one after the other. I thought all the books were good, but I'd say the first book was the weakest believe it or not. That's just my opinion.

After finishing the last book, I looked through the earlier volumes, feeling nostalgic so soon after leaving a world I was immersed in. I was satisfied with the end even if a thing or two had been built up to be important only to be dropped like a hot potato.

I want a billy-bumbler.

And to my pleasant suprise when we moved into the new place (I was reading book five, The Wolves Of The Calla) we got apartment #19. Can you say ka? (If you haven't read all the Dark Tower books, 19 takes on significance.)

Our new apartment has been fine. However, we keep getting calls for the Top Dog Acadamy, the business that had our phone number before we got it. In fact, I looked in the yellow pages of a two year old phone book and there was an ad for Top Dog with our new phone number. People leave messages on our voice mail wondering about our puppy classes. But we don't have puppy classes. Why don't people listen to recordings? Okay, to be fair, they're probably thinking Rob and Ximena are owners of Top Dog even if they didn't mention it during the recording. Perhaps I have a future in dog training?

The only other item of note in regards to the apartment is that last night a man screamed twice and either it was coming from outside or the apartment below us. It was a long agonizing scream, the kind one might make if he's injured and in pain and is moved. There was relative silence with some talking between screams. This was around two or three in the morning. Haven't figured that one out yet. Nobody died at least, as far as we can tell. Perhaps I should write a mystery?